SAITAMA, Japan
(AP) — Luka Doncic’s first Olympics have not been perfect, despite
what the basketball standings say. He was defeated. Once. By the
rules.
Doncic was
looking for tickets to go watch men’s tennis when Novak Djokovic
was playing in the men’s semifinals. Ordinarily, the world’s top
athletes have no problem getting into other Olympic events when
their schedules allow. But at the Tokyo Games, amid a pandemic,
there are very strict policies about what athletes can do and where
they can go. As such, Doncic’s plea for tickets went
unfulfilled.
He settled for
watching “everything on TV,” Doncic said.
Another marquee
event is coming up Tuesday, that being the men’s basketball
quarterfinals at the Tokyo Games. Doncic won’t have tickets to
those, but won’t need them, either. He’ll be on the court when
Slovenia takes on Germany for a berth in the medal round, a step
that would put his basketball-crazed homeland even more on the
sport’s map and potentially send his stock soaring even higher.
“We have,
obviously, the best player in the world,” Slovenia coach Aleksander
Sekulic said.
Doncic is
certainly in the conversation about being the world’s best. As far
as being the best player in the Tokyo Games, there’s no
argument.
Through the
group stage, Doncic led the Olympic men’s field in scoring at 28.3
points per game, 6.0 points ahead of Japan’s Rui Hachimura. He’s
second in rebounding at 10.7 per game, behind only Slovenian
teammate Mike Tobey’s 13 per contest. And he’s third in assists at
7.0 per game; Tomas Satoransky of the Czech Republic averaged 8.7,
Spain’s Ricky Rubio is averaging 7.3.
No men’s player
has ever finished an Olympics averaging Doncic’s current numbers.
And nobody has averaged 28.3 points in an Olympics since Brazil’s
Oscar Schmidt — the Olympic standard for just about every men’s
scoring mark — averaged 42.3 per game at Seoul in 1988.
“We’re making
history for our country,” Doncic said.
His impact is
all over the court.
Nobody in this
men’s tournament has drawn more fouls, by a wide margin, than
Doncic. He’s also tied for the Olympic lead in blocked shots, is
shooting a ridiculous 75% on 2-pointers, is one of five players in
the Olympics with at least 10 makes so far on
3-pointers. He had a 48-point Olympic
debut, tying him for the second-highest scoring game in
Olympic history, and was one assist shy on Sunday against
Spain from posting what would have been the third
triple-double ever at a games.
“He is the best
player in the world, including the NBA,” Argentina coach Sergio
Hernandez said. “If there was any doubt in my mind, it is there no
more.”
For as good as
Doncic is with the Dallas Mavericks, he’s been impossible to beat
in his nation’s colors.
Slovenia’s
senior team is 16-0 with Doncic in the lineup. He was a teenager on
the team that captured the European championship in 2017 behind
Goran Dragic’s MVP performance, a win that remains, for now anyway,
the top achievement in Slovenia’s basketball history. Dragic
insisted — not predicted — when that tournament was over that
Doncic would be an NBA “superstar.”
“They could win
this,” Dragic said earlier in these Olympics, watching from his
Slovenia home.
Doncic is
why.
Slovenia
surrounded Doncic for these Olympics, and the six-team qualifier it
had to win last month just to get to Tokyo, with plenty of shooters
who space the floor for his game and a big man like Tobey — who
played at Virginia — to provide the inside help needed. The formula
has worked all summer; Slovenia is 7-0 with an average winning
margin of 26.4 points per game.
A win over
Germany on Tuesday, and they’re in the medal round in their debut
Olympics.
“Playing with
him is just amazing,” Tobey said. “He’s so talented. At this type
of basketball, maybe every type of basketball, he’s the best in the
world. I don’t know what he does. You try not to be in awe too
much.”
The U.S. came
to Tokyo with 12 NBA players, a past MVP and NBA Finals MVP in
Kevin Durant, seven players who have played for an NBA title, five
of them who have actually won championships. Top to bottom, the
talent the Americans have overshadows every team, Slovenia
included.
But Doncic grew
up playing the international style, obviously. He knows how the
game is called. He knows the nuances. He’s used to playing with a
ball that differs from the feel and bounce of the NBA ball. For
him, the transition between playing for Dallas and playing for his
country has been seamless. Not every NBA standout in Tokyo can say
the same.
“Luka Doncic is
one of the best four or five players in the world right
now,” Japan coach Julio Lamas
said. “But he plays very comfortably in FIBA with the
spacing and the rules. Some other NBA players feel uncomfortable
sometimes in FIBA. He don’t. He is excellent in all the game
situations.”
Doncic wants no
part of the best-player conversation. He won’t even discuss an
offseason of change with the Mavericks — Jason Kidd taking over for
Rick Carlisle as coach, changes in the front office, changes to the
roster — until the Olympics are over. He’s locked in solely on
playing for gold, nothing else.
Besides, he
doesn’t need to rave about his own play. Everyone else already is
doing that for him.
“I’m happy that
I can witness and play with him,” said Slovenia guard Zoran Dragic,
Goran Dragic’s brother. “He’s such an awesome guy and it’s so easy
to play with him, because he’s just an unbelievable person and
basketball player. Yeah, we can be all happy that he’s
Slovenian.”